Finding a clothes recycling point near me

Looking for a clothes recycling point near me? Good call. It’s no secret that more than a million tons of textile is wasted in landfill every year in the UK. 95 percent of that could be salvaged. Textile waste can go to clothes recycling bins or you can donate clothing in good condition to thrift store or Salvation army. H&M and American Eagle Outfitters have textile recycling drop boxes where you can leave clothing shoes and other items.

Clothes recycling point near me – Which Charity?

clothes recycling point near me – a Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat.
Colorado State University Libraries, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Explore your local area to find the best option to find a clothes recycling point near me for you. You may want to give to charity. Have you thought about which charity you’d like to benefit? How to decide? Well, you can think about what is closest to your heart. Do you like animals? Choose an animal charity. But is that zoo animals, wild animals, a pet charity? A specific animal, like wombats? Or an endangered species? Would you like to help animals in your home country or somewhere else, or maybe you don’t have a preference? Should the charity be big or small?

Perhaps there’s a particular one you follow on Insta or socials. For example, I found myself following a tiny wombat rescue in Australia (I’m from the UK) which is run by two women, and they do their very best to look after every Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat who arrives at their doorstep. That is, of course, very specific. And I’m not sure they have a charity shop I can drop off at here in London. (Hint: they definitely don’t). But what I do is to sell my unwanted things online, and then I donate the money.

Of course, you may not want to be so particular, and in that case you might be just looking for the nearest clothes recycling point near me , reasoning that all good causes deserve your help. If you have lots of stuff, you can make a little recce in advance. Go out shopping, go for a coffee, explore your high street and see. If you only have a couple of things, pop them in a tote bag and take them with you to do the above. Of course, it is more than likely that you will return with more things than you set out with!

Clothes recycling point near me – the personal touch

I really recommend that you personally take your things in and drop them behind the counter if you can. They then remain safe and sound. If you put them in a charity bin clothes recycling point near you, well, you can do this if you have to, but things get damp so quickly and they might get ruined and wasted. Particularly textiles but I don’t think that anything is really that happy sitting in a metal container outdoors for a few weeks.

If you want to spread a little joy and directly see the effect, do consider offering your items to your friends first. You have to be fairly confident that they won’t accept out of politeness, because then you’re just passing the problem along. But if you have a pretty dress you no longer wear and you know it will make someone you know happy, why not take a nice photo of it and ask? Or you could ask on the local WhatsApp group.

If you are a very confident and social sort of person you can arrange for a clothes swapping party. You can do this in your house if you like. Get some tea and cake, invite some people, ask them to bring something. They could drop things off ahead of time so that you can arrange it all, or just bring it on the day. 

To me, the point of clothes recycling near by is that someone else gets the joy of it and it saves resources. It’s up to you to decide if you’d like to make money from it or hope for some charity to make money. Or you are happy for you community to save money by not paying for it.

Big Stores

Clothes recycling point near me. Eco Friendly. Image via Rawpixels, copyright free.

If you are not a fan of charity shops or arranging things, there are a lot of big shops which also accept donations. Some like it if its their own label they get back. Some don’t mind what kind of textiles they are. If you donate the right kind of thing, you can sometimes get store credit.

But don’t worry too much about what constitutes the right thing. They will sort your items for you. They can be sold as they are, remade into new garments or cleaning cloths, or shredded for recycling. The big stores don’t actually do any of this themselves, they pass it all on to another company. But it’s excellent that they organise this and even offer an incentive. It makes it very easy for consumers.

Hiring Clothes

Other eco-friendly options for finding a clothes recycling point near me include hiring clothes. For a small one-off fee or sometimes a monthly membership fee, some stores offer a hire of clothes. This is such a wonderful solution for things like party dresses, which you might not want to wear more than once or twice. It’s also good for things like office wear, if you fancy a statement jacket sometimes but don’t want to have to wear a fuchsia pink one with ruffles every day.

These hire clothing schemes used to be mainly for very expensive items, like ball gowns or fancy hats. But now a clothes recycling point near me is available for more every day items. The idea is that you can change your look up as often as you like, without the expense and waste of buying new every time. It’s also good because you can get the matching or toning accessories that were designed to go with the outfit so that you look polished. For example, not just the suit but the blouse and maybe even shoes and handbag too. It’s eco friendly, saves money, and you look both rich and stylish.

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